Brandauer taps into Bruderer technology to deliver Middle East contract
A significant £1.5m investment in a new high-speed production cell is helping a 159-year-old metal stamping specialist deliver a major contract to the Middle East.
Brandauer, which employs 63 people at its Birmingham factory, has strengthened its long-term partnership with Bruderer by installing a BSTA410-100, which is capable of up to 41 tonnes, 1600 strokes per minute and features a large 1110mm bed.
The machine will be used to manufacture stainless steel substrate frames for a male grooming product that is exported all the way to Israel and was chosen for its ability to achieve repeatable quality and parts in their millions.
Secured against intense international competition, the project underlined Brandauer’s ability to take the customer through the entire journey, from developing the complex tooling to producing these parts in extremely high volumes.
“We needed technology that could give us the tolerances and speed required by the customer to meet the order quantities, quantities that have more than doubled since winning the work,” explained Rowan Crozier, CEO of Queen’s Award-winning Brandauer.
“The Bruderer was our 26th press of theirs. We know the level of performance and reliability it can deliver and we knew we could work with their engineers to spec the machine so that it not only gave us the control we wanted for this project, but could also be deployed to pick up other high volume contracts we might be managing in the future.”
He continued: “We haven’t been disappointed. The control technology provides automatic ram shut height adjustment while the press is under acceleration and deceleration load for guaranteed process stability and pinpoint repeatability.
“This is essential when you are working with high tensile stainless steel that is just 0.15mm thick and utilising a progression tool that cost in excess of £100,000 to manufacture.”
The Bruderer BSTA 410-110 B2 was selected, customised and commissioned in a uniquely competitive eight-month window to meet the stringent delivery requirements of the global client.
Teams from both companies worked closely together to make this happen and to also ensure the machine was set-up to be fully automated to include post-production cleaning and re-reeling.
This means the press, alongside another Bruderer BSTA 510-110 B2, can produce up to 100 million parts for the customer every year.
“You just can’t beat the precision and speed of this technology and the £1.5m dedicated cell we’ve created for this is one of the best-performing in the business,” added Rowan.
Adrian Haller, Managing Director of Bruderer UK, concluded: “We’ve been helping Brandauer produce precision parts since 1976, so it’s great that the firm has once again turned to our presses for its latest product introduction.
“The tri-modular progression tool has more than twenty different stages and is one of the most complex the company has ever created. Our ram guidance system – exclusively at strip level, helps eliminate displacement between the punch and the lower die giving engineers the ultimate control over the quality of the component.
“It also plays a big role in reducing tool wear, which I know Rowan and the team were very keen on.”
